Taking the 'fed' out of 'freedom'

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A legal scholar would tell you that's the job of the U.S. Supreme Court. But across the country, groups are popping up that claim that the Constitution is being trampled by the court, Congress and especially the president. It's the job, they say, of common-sense patriots to stand up to these abuses and fight for the rights due to them and their local and state governments.

Otherwise, they say, America will be lost, Big Brother will take over, and our rights and freedoms will be in peril. Count among those "patriots" El Paso County Commissioner Peggy Littleton.

Littleton is an advisory board member of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, one of the groups that aligned with Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy against federal agents in an armed standoff over unpaid grazing fees. The group's main principle is that the county sheriff is the highest law enforcement officer in the land.

If anyone is going to save us from the federal government, they say, it's going to be the guys with the gold stars on their chests.

"If the federal government ever came in and tried to take away land that was not theirs, take away the arms that citizens have that we are legally and constitutionally given the right to have, I would applaud a sheriff that would stand up and say, 'Not here, not in our county,'" Littleton says.